A MODern Man
by dogbertcarroll
Summary: Harry takes advice he shouldn't, to do something he really should have known better than to try. Still, all's well that ends well, right?
1. Chapter 1

**Mod Man-Prologue**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, that would be JK Rowling.**

Harry sighed, looked down from the astronomy tower at Hogwarts, and wondered once more how things turned out the way they did. How exactly did they get here from there? He shook off his melancholy and used the marauder's map to check his patrol section for the night. A single glance was all it took to ensure no one was out of bounds.

Harry was rather pleased with how smoothly things were running, even if it did give him far too much time to brood. Brooding really didn't suit him, sure he was good at it, but that didn't make it any less frustrating. Still, despite his best efforts he found himself brooding on past events and wondering how they had led to this. All the evidence was so contradictory he couldn't even decide if Dumbledore had been a grand manipulator or a lucky fool. Well at least Harry could comfort himself with the knowledge that Snape, no matter which side he was working for, was really an arsehat.

Seriously, Harry knew Snape better than even Snape knew himself thanks to his little brain dump at the end. If Snape hadn't wanted Harry to know his every little secret he should have been more careful and not pulled a Lockhart on himself. Originally Harry had just wanted to know if Snape had faked that memory of Harry's father or not, but the lure of knowing everything a fully trained wizard and talented dark arts practitioner knew before he had to face Voldemort had been irresistible.

Harry had done something dangerously stupid, not that he hadn't done dangerously stupid things before (or since, for that matter), he had poured all of Snape's memories straight into his own head. That had not been a fun half hour… half a century. Turns out Snape knew nothing about teaching occlumency, as he'd cheated and used a spell to give him his much lauded skill. Of course the reason that spell had rarely been used was because of the possible side effects, namely insanity, blindness, death.

The older you were the more likely you were to blow out a lobe. Snape had gotten lucky and survived fourteen years of memories with everything intact, mostly. Harry had survived over a hundred combined years thanks to… well something, it's not like Harry was short on possibilities. His mother's sacrifice, the prophecy…

"Being the master of Death, after all you were the true master of the wand and owned the other two items, whether you knew it or not," Luna said.

"Very true," Harry agreed, not surprised the occlumency was useless against Luna or that she'd decided to pop up on top of the astronomy tower without him noticing her approach.

"If you're really curious on how things could have turned out differently you could take the place of one of your dead alternates," Luna suggested.

"Pardon?" Harry asked.

"You're the Master of Death," Luna pointed out. "That means more than just a nifty title. You can take the place of one of the infinite alternate versions of you that have passed on."

"You mean like alternate realities?"

"Exactly," Luna agreed. "Simply concentrate on your connection to the Hallows and feel for the life you want and then decide to make the switch."

Harry wondered if it could truly be that easy as he closed his eyes and imagined it his form fading into a ghostly outline before flickering out.

Lune stared wide eyed. "But… I was just fucking with you!"

**Typed by: Bankrupt Samurai**


	2. Chapter 2

**Mod Man: Chapter One**

Harry awoke cold and stiff with an aching head. Putting his hand to his head he felt a large bump and some dried blood. Opening his eyes he stared around blurrily for a moment before a glint of light betrayed his glasses on the ground. Putting his glasses on he discovered a broom next to him covered in dew. Apparently he'd gone flying and crashed into… a tombstone. It was an old tombstone the lettering worn away by time and the elements with only a familiar looking sign still legible, the sign of the Peverell family, the sign of the Hallows.

"Shit!" Everything came rushing back making his head hurt even more. Stumbling to his feet he automatically held out his hand and commanded his broom to come to him, reflexively hopping on and ordering it home. The cool morning air was enough to clear his head and let him push the pain away as the broom guided itself back to… Godric's Hollow.

He'd wanted to see what life would've been like if he wasn't the Boy Who Lived and instead was the Boy-with-parents-that-lived and now here he was. Examining himself it became apparent that the Boy part was literal as he was a kid again and pudgy one at that!

The house was a bit bigger than he remembered it being and in much better condition too. He felt the tingle of the wards running over his skin as he crossed the property line and landed in the backyard next to the shed. He put the broom away and turned towards the house just in time to have a redhead crush him to her.

"Do you have any idea how worried we-" the rest of what she said was muffled as his head forcibly crushed to her chest as she checked him for damage. "-are in so much trouble, young man! You have to get it from your father," she said leading him inside and not allowing him to get a word in edgewise. "God knows I was never this much trouble."

Thankfully his reflexes from dealing with Molly Weasley held him in good stead, as he went limp and tried to conserve oxygen until she finally released him.

He was fed, bandaged, and grounded in short order before being tossed in his room and told to stay there.

Laying on the bed he stared at the ceiling, which for some reason was covered in footprints and animal tracks, and tried to come to grips with his new reality.

A tiny Voldemort appeared on his left shoulder. "Having kids may have broadened her beam a bit," the nose-less specter said, "But damn if her ass doesn't look even better now then when I killed her!"

OK, the spell that Snape had used to teach himself the mind arts hadn't exactly left him untouched when he'd used it on himself, but really his choices at that point had been down to use the spell or become an unholy amalgam of Harry and Snape. Of course the spell had never been designed with the idea of someone having more than one person's memories in mind… or a soul fragment in his skull.

A tiny Snape appeared on his right shoulder. "And her breasts have grown at least two cup sizes! If you have any Oedipal thoughts about her, I won't judge you!"

"Yes you will," Voldemort disagreed. "You'll judge and then suggest improvements. For instance a hurt-comfort dream about breaking up with his first girlfriend and having Lily comfort him, had you giving him a three out of ten because there was no sex."

Harry took a moment to close his eyes and bury the two deep in his mind. When he finished he sighed and opened his eyes only to find another redhead had entered the room and was practically nose to nose with him, one he was quite familiar with.

"Boo," she said and then frowned when he didn't jump. He was surprised to see Ginny, but he guessed that even without all that Boy-Who-Lived rot they had still gotten together. Reaching up her pulled her to him, wrapped his arms around her and pressed his lips against hers.

Her initial resistance melted quickly as he did all the things he knew she liked. They'd dated for quite some time, so he was well versed in how to snog this particular witch breathless. She barely lasted five minutes before collapsing against him. OK he may have gone a bit overboard, but he was feeling a bit freaked out and needed something familiar to calm his nerves. He didn't realize he'd dozed off until he was woken up by the sounds of his parents at the door.

"They're so cute!" Lily squealed quietly. "James get the camera."

"Accio camera," James cast summoning the camera for his wife who immediately took several shots. "I knew they'd learn to get along eventually."

"All it took was your son making us think he'd run away or gotten himself hurt," she said.

"Totally worth it," James said proudly. "If it gets the two of them to kiss and make up so we get a little piece and quiet around the house I'll accept a couple of broken bones."

"Well fortunately there were no broken bones just a nasty lump on the head. I swear they must get it from your side of the family."

"As I recall you and your sister argued-" the door closed cutting off the rest as the two left.

Voldemort and Snape pushed their way out of the depths of Harry's mind, as he finally allowed the shock he felt to show on his face.

"There are no words to say how fucked up a situation this is," Voldemort said.

"I say we blame Dumbledore, because obviously he had a hand in it," Snape offered.

"A hand, hell," Voldemort snorted, "try his arm up the shoulder!"

"Putting her with the Weasleys kept her safe from the Death Eaters at least," Snape offered. "No one targeted her for being a Potter."

"Yes but she was targeted by Lucius for being a Weasley," Voldemort said. "And he would have had a harder time manipulating events with two Potter children."

"Remember that time she had you role-playing as her older brother?" Snape began.

Harry quickly pushed the two back down so he didn't have to listen to them. He wasn't sure why Dumbledore had hidden his sister with the Weasleys, but even if he had the best of intentions he had let the two of them… Dumbledore was going to pay for that!

"It wasn't that bad," Voldemort said popping back up. "Remember that thing she did with her tongue?"

Harry spent the next half hour reinforcing his shields and firmly suppressing the two. He really didn't need their input until he finished dealing with it himself.

"At least things can't get any worse," Harry muttered, before freezing in horror at what he'd said.

"I can't believe you just stole my life like that!" the ghost of Harry Potter complained. "And let go of my sister!"

**Typed by: Bankrupt Samurai**


	3. Chapter 3

**Mod Man: Chapter Two**

"You killed yourself," Harry defended. "All I did was take the spot you left open."

"What do you mean I killed myself?!" Harry's Ghost demanded.

"You crashed headfirst into a tombstone and were knocked unconscious," Harry explained. "Exposure did the rest."

"I did not!" the ghost denied angrily, refusing to admit it was his own fault he'd died doing something stupid when he'd had his whole life ahead of him.

Seeing that he was as stubborn dead as alive, Harry heard the whisperings of the Hallows and decided to listen, because he could not afford to get caught arguing with his own ghost. Harry whispered a word of power and the ghost was pulled from the room, back to his place of death and bound to that spot.

Fortunately, Ginny had slept through the whole thing. Emotionally wrung out and with a familiar weight on his chest, Harry Potter slept and while he slept, dreamed…

He was a lot paler and chubbier than he was used to, but then he was used to being forced to work long hours with little food. He sat on his towel and watched the ocean, fascinated with the way the waves came in, never ending, eternal.

"You've changed things," a pale young woman with dark hair, dressed in a black robe carrying a scythe announced as she took a seat next to him. She had a tattoo of an ankh surrounding her right eye.

Harry picked up a pebble and skimmed it across the water the ripples of its passage quickly erased by the waves as if they'd never existed.

"Fair point," she said as if he'd spoken. "But in the here and now there are changes even if in the span of eternity they really don't matter."

Harry nodded before reaching over to help her remove her robe, revealing flawless alabaster skin and a bikini that couldn't decide if it was there or not depending on which eye Harry looked through.

She moaned as he rubbed her down with sunscreen. "What about the changes to Ginny?" she asked lazily pointing behind them.

Harry didn't pause in his ministrations as he looked inland where a young red haired girl was walking through a forest carrying a picnic basket. He could see a naked half-human wolf with exaggerated genitalia hiding just off the trail with bright green eyes and a very familiar cast to his features, features that were also on the woodsman's face further down the trail, though his eyes flickered from green to brown and back again.

"I'm not saying the changes are bad, they're actually quite normal and healthy according to my sister, but I do believe they go against what you've been taught. Don't forget the soles of my feet."

Harry dutifully worked the soles of her feet eliciting a moan that was definitely sexual in nature.

"I expected to feel like myself as I was," Harry said his voice notably higher in pitch than when he'd heard it last. "But I don't, I feel like I am."

Whatever the pale-skinned girls' response would have been was washed away as a massive wave swept over them.

Harry woke up with a start noting Ginny was still on top of him and… "Wet dream," he muttered, "cute." Fortunately he knew some wandless cleaning charms that Dobby had taught him. Considering his life, his ability to clean using house elf magic really came as no surprise, too bad it was limited to cleaning spells. Ginny stirred and he could almost feel her blush, but she didn't get up or relinquish her hold on him. He wondered how much in common she had with the Ginny raised by the Weasleys.

"You said I was ugly yesterday," she said, "I was ugly and no boy would ever want to kiss me."

"I was lying," Harry said finding the fact that he wasn't surprised at how young they sounded surprising. He felt like he should feel like a grownup pretending to be a kid, instead he felt like a kid pretending to be a grownup. "You are very pretty and extremely kissable, as I proved."

Ginny giggled.

"I, like all male Potters and you can ask mom, can occasionally be a big butthead. It happens as we get older, but I'm told I'll grow out of it."

Ginny was quiet for a moment. "I like this," she admitted quietly.

"I'll try to be more like this from now on," Harry promised, "not the kissing, just the holding, but everyone acts like a butthead at times, it's part of growing up."

Ginny's stomach growled.

"And right now it's time for lunch," Harry said, right before an owl flew in, landed on his headboard, and extended its leg. He was surprised to find it was his Hogwarts letter and happy it was addressed to his room and not 'in Ginny's arms' as he was half afraid it would be when he saw the crest.

"You got your letter!" Ginny said excitedly, hopping off him. "We have to show mom and dad!"

Grabbing his hand she quickly pulled him into the living room, where he found himself surrounded by redheads. The Potters had a child every year for the first six years they'd been married, meaning Harry had five sisters: Ginny, Flora, Evie, Dawn, and Connie. It was like a reverse Weasley clan.

"We'll go shopping for your school supplies tomorrow before your birthday party," Lily promised him.

"Speaking of which," James said, "We've invited some of your sisters' friends to the party. This should help to keep your sisters out of your hair, so please try and be nice to them."

"If they're nice to me, I'll be nice right back at them," Harry promised. "I promise amnesty for any past actions. Everyone gets a clean slate."

"Everyone?" Flora asked hopefully.

"Everyone," Harry promised. "As far as I'm concerned the past doesn't exist. Be nice to me and I'll be nice to you."

"That's a good policy to follow for everyone," Lily said pointedly, causing much tittering among the herd.

The youngest, Connie grabbed Harry's hand. "Tea party!"

"Tea party!" Evie agreed grabbing Harry's other hand.

"Tea party," Harry agreed just before his stomach growled. "Lunch tea party," he suggested.

"I'll make some finger sandwiches," Lily said amused.

"Dress up!" Evie announced.

"Dress robe or tuxedo?" Harry asked.

"Dresses!" the girls chorused just as James vanished with a pop, escaping while he could.

The two quickly pulled him to their room, which was a mess as the two young girls had scattered half their dresser and closet over their beds and had toys scattered everywhere.

A snap of his fingers animated several stuffed animals who started cleaning the room as well as a pair of house elves who popped in and helped cleaned the room while looking around suspiciously before popping out.

"Change!" Dawn demanded laying out a puffy pink dress on the bed in front of Harry.

Connie was half out of her shirt, a ballerina outfit with a tutu ready for her, though with the way she was struggling to get undressed he wasn't sure how she expected to put it on.

"I don't suppose you have something in red," Harry asked as he stared at the pink monstrosity in horror.

Ginny and Flora started tugging at his shirt, causing him to automatically lift his arms.

"You know the rules," Ginny said as Evie helped Connie, who had managed to tangle herself in her shirt. "You agree to the party they pick the clothes."

Flora quickly jumped in to help Dawn, who was searching for a zipper in a white, fluffy, bunny suit.

"I don't mind the dress, but the pink just makes me look so pale," he joked as Ginny helped him remove his pants.

The girls giggled and Ginny managed to coax his boxers off, much to the girls' interests. Harry quickly reached for the dress and put it on, understanding their curiosity but not really feeling that comfortable being their display model. He'd heard from Hermione about normal childhood development and it involved some things that shocked him, but even if they were normal it still made him a bit uncomfortable at the moment.

Evie buckled on a plastic sword and put on the helmet of a Roman centurion, seemingly content with wearing her normal dress with it while neither Ginny nor Flora looked to be dressing up at all.

"Not dressing up?" Harry asked.

"Dawn and Connie only invited you and Evie," Flora said with a grin. "We will be having lunch with mom."

"Tea party!" Lily's voice rang out.

Ginny groaned. "And now we have to demonstrate the appropriate manners."

Flora sighed. "At least we don't have to dress up."

"Remember to dress up!" Lily's voice called out.

"Not a word," Ginny said as they left.

Harry grinned noting that Flora and Ginny were practically twins, in temperament as well as looks it seemed.

The elves popped in and quickly laid out finger sandwiches, tea, cakes, and little bowls of pudding while everyone sat at the small table.

"You don't like those," Evie told Connie as she picked up a couple of finger sandwiches and pointed her towards some others.

Dawn carefully filled everyone's cups with tea and then added sugar and milk. Harry grinned at the way her tongue stuck out of the corner of her mouth as she concentrated on not spilling anything.

There wasn't much said as everyone stuffed their faces, much to Harry's surprise. Dawn and Flora had both inherited Lily's green eyes while the rest of the girls had gotten James' brown ones, but for that fact he'd almost swear Lily had simply cloned herself as there were few traces in the girls' looks that showed James' contributions at all.

"Pudding time!" Dawn announced and everyone grabbed spoons and the little bowls of pudding and started trying to feed each other while smearing as much pudding on their face as possible.

Yeah, they were definitely James' kids.

Clean up was enthusiastic, but a bit hit or miss. Thank God for house elves because pudding was everywhere!

"Nap time," Lily announced with an amused smile as she stuck her head in the room.

Harry yawned. "Good, I was just thinking I could use a nap."

The girls, who usually fought tooth and nail to avoid nap time, started pulling Harry towards their beds, in opposite directions, except Evie who pouted because her own, that she shared with Flora, was across the hall.

"Let's just push the beds together," Harry suggested to keep the girls from arguing and shortly found himself buried in redheads as Connie laid on his chest leaving room for Evie on his right side. He was completely unaware of the smile on his face as he drifted off, surrounded by family… or the soft glow that spread from him to his sisters as he slept.

**Typing by: Bankrupt Samurai**


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